


Eulogy of a Monster

by FirebirdRising



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Vignettes, Work In Progress, posting this while it's still canon compliant, takes place sometime after the Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-01-30 17:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12658095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FirebirdRising/pseuds/FirebirdRising
Summary: There were many “what if’s” in his story. What if he’d rejected the voice? What if he’d had a normal childhood? What if he’d embraced the Jedi? What if he’d had a chance?When faced with a force-proof cell, Kylo Ren has more time to think than he would like. Vignettes of Kylo Ren's musings as he awaits his end. Told through a series of visits to his cell by different members of the Resistance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Star Wars.

When faced with a force-proof cell, Kylo Ren has more time to think than he would like. 

There were many “what if’s” in his story. What if he’d rejected the voice? What if he’d had a normal childhood? What if he’d embraced the Jedi? 

What if he’d had a chance? 

A chance. 

Isn’t that what all monsters had needed? Before the guillotine beheaded them? Before the saber pierced their heart? Before the sweet embrace of death ended it all? Yes, that’s what all monsters had needed. 

But is a chance what a monster deserved?  
____

 

“Your execution has been scheduled,” the man rattled on from behind the door. “It will take place on the winter solstice at dawn.” 

Kylo Ren remained staring at the wall. 

The Resistance man continued staring at him through the crack in the cell. Out of his peripheral vision, Kylo could make out his features. He was and elderly human- perhaps eighty years of age. The former Sith wandered if they had sent the poor man as a test: if Ren killed him, the man had already lived his life. 

(It was hard to kill someone through a force-proof cell, without a lightsaber.)

The man remained staring at him for a long time. Eventually, Kylo turned on his cot and faced the wall, presumed asleep.  
_____

Luke came next. He looked older than he did a week ago. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and his shoulders sagged as if the weight of the world rested upon them. Is this how he had looked when the Jedi temple was destroyed? Or was this a new skin the old man grew into- one that elicited sympathy rather than what Luke Skywalker deserved. 

There was silence. Eventually, the scraping of a chair pierced the still air, followed by a creak as the elderly Jedi sat down.

“When did Snoke start speaking to you?”

Kylo scoffed. Haven’t seen your nephew in years- you start with that? 

That happens when you kill someone’s best friend. 

Kylo pushed the thought away as soon as it appeared. How close could the two men have been, if they had not seen each other in two decades? Still, Kylo made Luke stare at his black-clad back. He did not owe his uncle anything.

Besides, he’d no idea when Snoke had found him, anyway.

___

“You’ve broken your mother’s heart.”

It seemed, when faced with a monster, everyone was straight-to-the-point. 

Kylo could recognize Poe Dameron by his voice. He’d heard it enough on Starkiller- the screams of his rejection, the cocky retorts that reminded him so much of Han Solo. 

“She never understood me,” Kylo muttered-his first words since he arrived on base. His voice was weak, cracking under two weeks of not using it. Pathetic. “Perhaps she should have tried.”

 

“You are her son.”

At this, Kylo raised his eyes to meet Poe’s. The man was furious- his devotion to his general an inferno in his steely eyes. 

Son. 

He’d heard that word a lot lately. Yes, he was the son of Leia and Han. He’d been born of them, and therefore had felt their fear. Their fear of him as he lifted his toy bantha off the floor of the Millennium Falcon.

Kylo ran a hand through his midnight locks, ones that had grown longer and slick with grease over the course of the past fourteen days.

“She is no mother of mine,” the Knight of Ren seethed.  
\----

By the sixteenth day, the one they called “Finn” had come to his cell thrice. Two times, he’d stood outside of the cell- only once positioning his access card above the reader. Tonight, he let himself in fully. The former stormtrooper was clothed in a Resistance pilot uniform, the orange a stark contrast to Kylo’s stonelike cell. 

If Phasma were here, she would greet him with a, “Hello, traitor.” But Phasma is not here. And Kylo Ren is too…. Too something to waste strength on a First Order escapee. 

Finn did not sit in the chair across from him, nor did he get straight to the point as everyone else did. Instead, Finn remained standing, eyes daring to be sympathetic as they washed over the doomed Sith.

Finally, Finn spoke: “How are you doing?”

Every muscle in Kylo’s body tensed. Of all the things he thought a former stormtrooper-turned-rebel would ask him, that was not one of them. Looking back, the Sith Lord could not remember the last time he’d been asked that question. 

(The question resonated in his head: “How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing”) 

The cot creaked. In one swift motion, Kylo stood towering over the deceiver. He reached for a lightsaber that was no longer there. 

Finn had the decency to step back, but not to look afraid. 

There was a knock on the cell door. The scavenger’s voice rang through: “Time to go, Finn.”

Finn left, moving backwards as to never turn his back to the enemy. It was what his parents had done when he’d crushed the blocks beside his crib.

______

 

He was still thinking of Finn’s question hours later. He’d never been one to comprehend mercy. Then again, he’d never been one to contemplate it either. 

(Mercy. No one had shown him it then, why was one person showing it to him now?)

Kylo concluded after a sleepless night- or day, he’d lost track- that Finn’s sympathy was not a gesture of anything but who the other man was.

Some people were born righteous. Kylo Ren was not one of them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Star Wars. May the force be with you all! One day more!

Snoke’s Lair, Before 

The Scavenger was dying. 

Kylo Ren knew this. He could feel her force signature growing weak, fading from existence. Her hand, trembling violently, was extended in front of her crumbled form, trying desperately to summon her weapon. It never came. 

“Kill her, apprentice,” Snoke sneered. 

There was a hiss as Kylo ignited his saber, stood over the scavenger. 

A minute passed. Then another. 

“KILL HER!”

Kylo met the Scavenger’s eyes- two determined entities boring into his soul. Kill me, they seemed to say. Finish it. 

He raised his blade, his breath coming in unsteady heaves. Rey dropped her hand.

“KILL HER!” 

No. 

Kylo Ren launched his saber at the Supreme Leader’s chest. Snoke did not have time to react before it pierced his heart. 

\-------

Days passed without notice. The four metal walls began to close in. Kylo remained lying on the cot. Sometime, the lights had went out, leaving him in total darkness. He embraced it. 

Day after day, food would be delivered through the small slit in the door. There would be an inkling of light- just enough to make his pupils scream- then nothing. Sometimes he heard voices. The staccato of Dameron’s anger. The cautious muttering of FN-2187. 

Once he heard his mother’s voice, talking to Uncle Luke. “There’s still good in him!” 

It sounded, almost, like she was pleading. Almost. But not quite. 

\--------

When Leia did visit, he pretended to be asleep. 

An hour passed. Leia just stood there, in the middle of his cell, looking at her son. 

Finally, she spoke. Her voice was soft- too soft for a general. Kylo found himself straining to hear her. 

“I knew you were powerful from the moment the nurses put you in my arms,” her voice cracked. A step. “I didn’t care. You were perfect.” 

Another step. Then another. 

Leia’s hand slowly came up to caress his face, moving a lock of midnight hair from in front of his closed eyes. 

He remained motionless. 

\-----------

Finally, finally, the scavenger visits him. 

She’s dressed in all grey, a symbol of where she now stood on the line. Kylo tries not to notice the way her hand twitches on her saber, how the conflict in her eyes reflects his. 

(Poe Dameron’s words come back to him. Does he speak first? Her?)

Rey makes that decision for him. (He tries not to think about how her name sounds like a prayer in his head)

“Are you afraid?”

“To die?”

Rey shifted on her feet. Finally, she took three steps over to the bed and sat down beside him. He shifted over to give her more room. “Yes,” she said. “To die.”

 

Kylo Ren was not a righteous man, but he, in the end, knew right from wrong. He had led many to their deaths. That could only mean a fiery end for him. 

(Was he afraid to die?)

“When is the Solstice?”

Rey shifted. Her hand twitched on her knee, as if she was going to move it to rest on his. He begged her silently just to touch him once. 

Once before he went…

“Three days.”

He had three days to live. 

\---------

Visits became more frequent as his execution drew nearer. Finn came more than anyone else. Once, he brought a picture frame. 

“Phasma said this was my mother. That was all she knew,” he swallowed thickly. “Do you know anything.”

Kylo looked from the former stormtrooper to the picture: the same eyes, the same mouth. One holding an infant, the other holding the weight of the world. 

He tried then. The former Sith Lord generally strained to remember anything about this woman. 

But he couldn’t. 

\--------  
Even with the force-proof cell, it seemed force bonds were stronger. He had pulled at it a few times since being in here, even scraped away at her stonelike wall just to see what was happening. 

(He didn't know why he cared. He had been contemplating that question since his the adrenaline from that day had left. The Scavenger- Rey- meant something. He had killed for her. He had killed the Supreme Leader.)

Sometimes, the wall surrounding her mind would weaken. He would slip through, unnoticed, and see an abundance of light. Without the wall completely down, he saw mostly flashes. Flashes of her salvation. 

A bottle spinning in the middle of a circle of people. 

Chewie’s strong arms around her smaller body, now muscular with months of Jedi training.

Rose Tico braiding the stem of a flower into her short brown hair. 

Finn and Poe Dameron laughing on the floor of the Millenium Falcon. 

Kylo feels a pang of… something… whenever he sees these moments. It’s quickly forgotten, however, when Rey inevitably comes to visit his cell. By his calculations, there are fifty-one hours until his execution. 

Rey sits down in the chair. It’s become more rickety over the course of these few weeks. 

“Why did you do it?” she asked after a prolonged silence. “Turn to the dark side?”

A beat. A breath. 

“Because it made me feel alive.”  
________

Chewie visited him as Rey was leaving. He placed his furry paw on her back as she exited, eliciting a smile from the Scavenger's face. 

Ren is fluent in Kashyyk- always has been. He translates the Wookie’s words without a problem: Hello, little one. 

Kylo looks down at his lap. Takes in a deep breath. 

Little one.


	3. Chapter 3

The storm starts just hours after Chewie leaves. Kylo can hear it from his cell, even deep in the ground. It’s a storm unlike any other: wind howling and blowing so strong it could blow a bantha away. 

There were frantic commands eliciting from up above. Footsteps echoed throughout the building. Kylo tugged at the bond, a question slipping through. 

Rey, to his surprise, let him in. The Resistance was alight in various states of disarray: pilots frantically landing ships, officers trying to shut the large metal door. Rey was yelling something to Poe Dameron, who was half-carrying a dazed Rose Tico. 

“Rey!” 

The bond closed as quickly as it had opened. 

****

Rey came down after the chaos upstairs dulled to a light background noise. 

“Hurricane,” Rey clarified, slipping over the word. There weren’t many tropical disasters on Jakku, after all. 

Her hair was soaked and dripping, as were her clothes. A blanket was wrapped tightly around her thin shoulders. With a pang of… what was it exactly… he noticed she was shivering. 

“Your execution has been rescheduled,” she told him. “Too many damages to do it on the Solstice.” 

With that, she walked out. 

Anger filled his veins. Why couldn’t they just get it over with?

Isn’t that what a monster deserved?

With a roar, he beat his fist into the metal wall until it bent. 

*****  
There was an assemblage of rebels in his cell the next morning: Finn, Poe Dameron, and Rose. They all had bags under their eyes, presumably from a rough night of keeping the base intact.  
For awhile, as it seemed everyone did when entering the monster’s cell, the three just stared at him. Kylo Ren was a caged animal for children’s amusement. 

“Well?” he snapped, finding his patience with being alive was wearing thin. 

Poe and Finn exchanged a look. They had Rose- tiny, tired, and weary- tucked safely behind them, obviously the rookie of the group. 

“We need to talk to you,” Poe started. 

Kylo had to scoff at that. He’d been read a list of his sins during his trial. He’d confessed to every last one. What more was there to know? 

“About?” he countered, his voice deep, menacing. 

Finn’s eyes turned steely. The former stormtrooper took a step toward him. His whisper was more serious than any yell could have been: “Rey. You’re hurting Rey.” 

That got Kylo Ren’s attention. He stood up in a sudden movement. Poe pushed Rose farther behind him. “What?” he asked quickly, too quickly for an enemy. “What’s wrong with her?”

****  
Anakin came the next morning, shimmering and cold. "You've failed me." Kylo Ren would have screamed his rejection. Ben Solo simply nodded. "I know."

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it. Please leave a review, if you don't mind.


End file.
